Over forty hurt in second night of Madrid clashes 03/05/2007 00:00

3 May 2007

MADRID - Forty-six people were injured in clashes between youths and police in the Madrid neighbourhood of Malasaña, authorities said on Thursday.

On the second night of clashes, most suffered light bruises apart from a police officer who was taken to hospital with a broken arm and multiple bruises, spokespersons for the municipal emergency services department told Efe.

Efe reporters, meanwhile, saw security forces arrest at least 10 people who were placed in police vehicles in handcuffs.

Malasaña is a downtown, working-class neighbourhood of Madrid that is home to numerous nightspots and which in recent days has been the scene of 2 May  festivities, a local holiday to commemorate the 1808 uprising against Napoleon's occupying army by the people of Madrid.

The trouble started at around 3 a.m. with the arrest of a dozen revellers who resisted police efforts to clear them off the street.

Police were trying to prevent the youths, once the nightspots closed, from organizing what is known in Spain as a "botellon," or open-air drinking party.

Spanish dailies described the clashes as a "pitched battle" in which anti-riot police charged at a group of youngsters who were throwing various objects at them.

Following the clashes, which lasted two hours, the streets were strewn with uprooted and burned trash receptacles, construction debris containers that had been set on fire and placed as barricades, overturned telephone booths and plenty of broken glass, bricks and stones.

Mayor Alberto Ruiz-Gallardon said the intervention of the security forces was "correct and proportionate" to enforce Madrid's anti-botellon ordinance.

[Copyright EFE with Expatica]

Subject: Spanish news

3 May 2007

MADRID - More than 40 people were injured in clashes between youths and police in the Madrid neighbourhood of Malasaña, authorities said on Thursday.

On the second night of clashes, most suffered light bruises apart from a police officer who was taken to hospital with a broken arm and multiple bruises, spokespersons for the municipal emergency services department told Efe.

Efe reporters, meanwhile, saw security forces arrest at least 10 people who were placed in police vehicles in handcuffs.

Malasaña is a downtown, working-class neighbourhood of Madrid that is home to numerous nightspots and which in recent days has been the scene of 2 May  festivities, a local holiday to commemorate the 1808 uprising against Napoleon's occupying army by the people of Madrid.

The trouble started at around 3 a.m. with the arrest of a dozen revellers who resisted police efforts to clear them off the street.

Police were trying to prevent the youths, once the nightspots closed, from organizing what is known in Spain as a "botellon," or open-air drinking party.

Spanish dailies described the clashes as a "pitched battle" in which anti-riot police charged at a group of youngsters who were throwing various objects at them.

Following the clashes, which lasted two hours, the streets were strewn with uprooted and burned trash receptacles, construction debris containers that had been set on fire and placed as barricades, overturned telephone booths and plenty of broken glass, bricks and stones.

Mayor Alberto Ruiz-Gallardon said the intervention of the security forces was "correct and proportionate" to enforce Madrid's anti-botellon ordinance.

[Copyright EFE with Expatica]

Subject: Spanish news